writers on dancing

August 08, 2017

The famed Bolshoi Ballet has given New Yorkers many tastes of its excellent classical repertory during the company’s visits over the years, but has gotten some under- standable criticism for those selections -- the classics are great, but was the company stuck in time and where were the new works? This year’s presentation of Jean-Christophe Maillot’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” which was set on the company in 2014 to music by Dmitri Shostakovich, was the troupe’s answer. While I’ve never been part of the camp that criticized Bolshoi for sticking with the old – after all, having a chance to see a gorgeous, expertly danced “Swan Lake” is hardly ever a bad thing – the new ballet did make me wonder why the troupe waited so long to dazzle us with the new, and when could we see more?

In a short run at the BAM Fisher theater, Carlota Santana’s spirited company presented impressive flamenco technique, a cherished relationship with the dance form and generous storytelling through dance. The intimate setting of a small stage allowed for a closer connection to the dancers and their expression, and the performance amounted to a memorable night of richness of soul and substance.

June 03, 2017

For her debut in the role with American Ballet Theatre, Misty Copeland presented the crowd with a robust but not particularly enthusiastic Kitri, and fellow debutants Jeffrey Cirio as Basilio, Luciana Paris as Mercedes and Calvin Royal III as Espada enlivened the production with joyful and appealing dancing. The ballet wasn’t perfect, but the shining moments shone brightly, even if that light did not come from where one expected it.

May 29, 2017

The main event of the evening was the world premiere of Justin Peck’s fourteenth ballet for NYCB called “The Decalogue,” but as the audience waited for the fresh and new, the company dusted off and presented three ballets of the somewhat old. All dating back to 2006 and into the 1990s, the works that led up to the big reveal of the night were Lynne Taylor-Corbett’s 1994 ballet “Chiaroscuro,” Jerma Elo’s 2006 “Slice to Sharp,” and Peter Martins’ 1998 “Stabat Mater.” All fared well at showing where the company’s recent choreography stood, even if they looked distinctly of a different era when compared to what Peck had in store for the audience to culminate the night.

May 10, 2017

A program of works by just one choreo- grapher can do wonders at revealing that creator’s weaknesses and strengths. With no one else’s craft for the works to be compared to, hide behind or shine over, the creator is presented to the audience as all they are, and for his part, Christopher Wheeldon really let his talent glow throughout the evening.

April 28, 2017

The sole woman in a red dress stood in the middle of the stage with her back to the audience. She flicked her wrists, resonating the motion in her elbows and then all through her arms, curved her spine and twisted her body, with these spiraling movements echoing the flamenco beats of the music. Her body bended to the side, with fingers moving as though on a Spanish guitar, she grabbed the long trail of her red ruffled dress and faced the viewers with a piercing gaze that was both daring and inviting. That was how Ballet Hispánico’s program of three works by female Latina choreographers at the Joyce Theater began: with femininity, resolve and emboldened beauty.

April 11, 2017

The marquee event of The Joffrey Ballet’s brief return to New York City after being gone for 22 years was its modernized “Romeo & Juliet,” which was fresh and interesting, but also imperfect. The premise of this 2008 ballet by Polish choreographer Krzysztof Pastor, with dramaturgy by Willem Bruls, was that throughout the epochs and time, some things, like cultural divisions and struggles of forbidden love, stay the same. To show that, the work kept the classic story intact, but the cultural background to the tale, which shifted around through the decades of 20th Century Italy, raised enough questions to really detract from the otherwise compelling dancing.

The Martha Graham Dance Company’s latest New York season, intriguingly titled “Sacred / Profane,” offered a mix of two Graham works and two newer choreographies, including one world premiere by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, in its second program. The works presented an interplay of ritual and innocence, problems of torture, a mosaic of human identity and spectrums of love, and their performance amounted to an evening of very earnest artistic presentation of these complex topics.

It’s fascinat- ing to watch young dancers, those just on the cusp of professional careers, as they feel their way through and experiment with various works. There is their exploration of what the work ought to look like, of course, but also, since these dancers are not yet set in their ways, the many expressions of their brewing individualities. In a performance by young artists from ABT Studio Company and graduates of the Royal Ballet School, the mixed bill program presented at the NYU Skirball Center offered a full menu of such expressions, in works ranging from classics by Frederick Ashton and Kenneth MacMillan to more recent creations, and even a world premiere. The more recent works fared better than the classics, with the dancers from both schoolings delivering an absolutely marvelous performance of a new ballet by Liam Scarlett to close the night.

February 19, 2017

NYCB’s “Sleeping Beauty” remains a beautiful production, and the smartly chosen cast of veterans and debutants gave the season’s early performance a good balance of stability and risk. Not all went smoothly, but the high points of the evening, particularly Sara Mearns’s debut as Fairy Carabosse, struck a memorable chord.